stupid ":":s... ah!

it:s cold in japan all of a sudden. first day was slightly muggy with highs in the low 70:s. second day: dropped to the 50:s and what:s probably 40:s with windchill.

on the bright side, the cold weather made me feel at home in jtree :)

and in case anyone is wondering, i can:t find the stupid apostrophe on japanese keyboards.　Instead, they've replaced it with... waah?

in the middle of this blog, I pushed some button and now I have full american keyboard usage - woo hoo! they've gien me my apostrophes!!! I can now claim possessives!!!

In other news, met with friends yumi, ami, yumi's bf, johnnie's sister domini, my grandparents and a family friend. not much shopping, fewer engrish mistakes, and even less shopping. Off to nara in 4.5 minutes, and then to south korea where I'm curently trying to convince my sister to go visit one of the more dangerous places in the world: the north korea / south korea de-militarized zone (only 80 km away from seoul!).

Urban backpacking!

I leave for Japan and Seoul in a little over an hour now. What do I feel? Excitement, anticipation, slight trepidation, and an intriguing epiphany. What is that epiphany? That my family probably can't backpack the sierras without having to resort to cannibalism, but they're professional urban backpackers.

You've probably seen the urban backpacker - they tend to flock to Europe. Male or female, they're usually 20 something people who are out exploring the world as cheaply and as mobile as possible. In the case of my family, they're just trying to live up to the Japanese ability of streamlining and improving upon the idea of travelling to another civilization. I realized this as I was double checking my lists with my mom about what to bring - clothes? toiletries? camera (I AM Japanese...)? No, my mom suggests I bring along change of underwear and some extra socks. Period. "You should go fast and light" she says "just wear what you need, buy anything you require and remember NOT to check anything in". She made me feel like I needed to rush out to REI and buy all of their ultra-light adventure racing gear for this trip (dehydrated boxers? sweet - that's light and packable!).

Somehow I'm out of practice with the urban backpacking though. I'm sticking with my 2400 cu in backpack with a smaller camelback (originally I was going to go with a jury-rigged manpurse, but Johnnie talked me out of it for fear that people Stateside would taunt me forever... oh.. ooops...), clothes for 30 F degree to 80F degree weather, toiletries, camera, a green ribbon and my compass. My compass is keeping me feeling safe and comforted. I very well couldn't bring my MSR stove with me to help keep me feel as if everything was just A OK.

I still managed to streamline what I was bringing. I'm going to attempt not to check in my backpack and hope they don't have a problem with it. oh well if they do...

... then I tried to kill him... wait, he tried to kill me... no, we tried to kill each other... (part four: Frogland...)

Final Day: our assault on Frogland. This is a "gem" of the Red Rocks Area - technically 7 pitches of "spicy" 5.8 climbing to the top. It sees long lines and good climbers all day long in a shaded corner of the park. A recommended climb, most people make a 5 am ascent start time like our friends Chris and Elaine. Robb and I didn't get going till closer to 9:30. :D

After a little bit of route finding on the dirt roads to get to the climb, and then a 30 minute hike in, Robb and I reach the base of Frogland. We were pretty excited - Chris and Elaine were up high, nearly finishing the climb. There was another party a few pitches up but things looked clear for Robb and myself - no queue.

We lazily took our time gearing up, peeing, flaking the rope, peeing, stashing our gear, peeing some more, drinking some water, and then marking our territory some more. Somewhere between peeing the first time and the last time, we heard a screeching voice from above: "rock... rock... ROCK...". Robb and I quickly made ourselves as small a target as possible, huddled under a tiny roof a couple feet besides us and pressed ourselves against the rock wall (note: falling objects from above tend to bounce and skitter AWAY from the wall... "tend to".... ). After a few moments, I didn't hear the classic shattering sounds of rock breaking into pieces or the metallic ring of aluminum climbing gear crashing down from a 500' fall. A bit confused, we later discovered that Elaine had accidentally dropped one of her shoes from close to top of the climb and it miraculously landed on the trail. We made sure to make it more conspicuous by putting an empty gatorade bottle with a bright orange cap into the shoe :). <--- good samaritans.

Robb leads the first pitch. For the most part, no problems... 'cept that our topo is a piece of !@$!#!@!^$%!!!!! Robb misunderstands the route map that we had, climbs PAST where he was supposed to build his anchor. He was a little concerned when just as he clips a piece into the rope, I yell out "Robb!!! 20 FEET!!!". Robb looked up and realized that a large ledge was coming, but he could only reach it with 25'. So, to make a long story short, he made sure he was secure, and yelled out to me that i needed to climb 5 feet of the "route" onto a large ledge and belay him from there. Excitment! So basically so far today, Robb nearly killed himself.

I reach him at his belay ledge 200' above me (but not without making a bloody mess out of myself by tearing part of my nail off while climbing), take the gear and head up the next pitch. It was slow and plodding for the most part. The key moment of the pitch when I had to figure out where to build my anchor. Once again, I stupidly consulted our topo and mistakenly built the belay anchor about 20' right of where we were supposed to be in a tangled bushy ledge. I didn't realize this while I was building my anchor out of a sapling in a crach backed up with a #2 cam.

Robb follows me, we consult the topo and realize that we're off route. Robb has to climb up and through the tangled branches of some of the tree-lings on our ledge, step out onto a blank slab and traverse 20' with only a small #00 TCU to protect him at the beginning of the traverse.

But this all has to happen after he moves that loose rock he dislodged. Yes - Robb's first move is to step on a big torso sized rock below the sapling as his foothold. As soon as he puts weight on it, it promptly pulls out and we both struggle to keep it in place as he regains his footing. The next 5 minutes is spent with both of us struggling to make space on this cramped belay ledge to find and move the rock to a secure spot where it wouldn't go crashing down on the people below us.

Oh yeah - forgot to mention, that people have started to climb below us and are practically speed climbing up the route. They climb the 300' it took us 2 or 3 hours to do in just over an hour. That's not putting pressure on us... <---- sarcasm.

So anyways, after Robb struggles to barely lift and carry this block of rock to a secure spot, he starts the traverse through the branches and onto the slab - using a patch of DIRT where the rock used to be as his first foothold. Crazy Alaskan...

Meanwhile, as Robb is making move after move through the slab, I nervously glance at the anchor. The sapling looked good and healthy - I've built (and rappeled!) off of saplings smaller than what I had. But now the roots were in a dirt patch that was now no longer held in place by the missing block that we dislodged. hrm. Not to mention that the #2 cam was placed in a similar looking block in the same crack. Double hrm. I came to the conclusion that the anchor would probably hold.. but just in case, if Robb takes a swinging lead fall, 20' to the left of me onto his #00 TCU, I decided to make a leap off of my belay ledge, and use another sapling / tree/shrub to my left as a fulcrum point between the energy of Robb's fall and my own fall, all the while having to time it just right so I don't land on the other ledge 10' below me and crush my ankles. What I want to know is: what drunken vegas climber came up with this topo? "I'm going to dress up like a climber, make a manky anchor, and go BALLS DOWN A CLIFF FACE. Ja! Dat would be fun!" (please note: at this point, Obi has nearly tried to kill Robb again... and arguably himself).

Fortuantely, my dynamic belay didn't have to be used. Robb cruised up this climb (although I didn't realize till later that he didn't place any more pro for 40' due to potential rope drag...). The other party is basically on top of us and I follow Robb to a secure, yet sketchy looking anchor. He missed the next belay station and built his own. Admittedly, it was a nice ledge, but the placements were poor (read: scary). (Robb has arguably nearly killed both of us again).

The next pitch had the section that Robb wanted to do: tunnel beneath a large chockstone boulder wedged into a gully / 4' wide crack. I gave Robb this lead since he's starting to pick up speed and find his rhythm... while I was losing mine and quickly becoming tired and low energy. Robb happily took the lead and raced up, placing as little pro as possible... err... placing pro in a safe and efficient manner. (Robb has nearly killed no one here... *whistling innocently*)

The final 150' pitch went fast. Robb took this lead that amounted to about 100' of Fifth class climbing with about 50' of 4th class scrambling. With the light failing, we put our approach shoes on, wrapped up the ropes and nearly ran down the descent trail back to our packs and to our car. By the time we were on the road, it was completely dark. A good way to end the weekend, me thinks.

All in all, I think Robb and I nearly killed each other plenty of times and we left Nevada feeling nothing but the warm exhausted glow of hatred for each other. I was tempted in reminding him why he should hate me so much by driving through the Strip again and beholding all that Vegas has to offer. I figured I should do that next time, when his fishing knife wasn't in arms' reach (stupid knife).

... then I tried to kill him... wait, he tried to kill me... no, we tried to kill each other... (part three: Vegas baby, Vegas...)

On the way back to the car, Robb and I discussed dinner plans. It was here that I found out that Robb has NEVER been to Las VEgas before in his life.

"well in that case, we HAVE to go into town. We'll look around for a buffet, walk around looking for scantily clad girls in the casinos and then come back to camp"

Little did he know what he was getting into. You see - Robb is from the Alaskan mountains. He's used to quiet serenity, mountains, star light and all that stuff. I neglected to mention that on the weekends, you have a loud bustling party city filled with all the obnoxious LA people. He tried to kill me once - it was payback time >:)

So we drove out to Strip. We started from the north end and *SLOWLY* made our way south towards Treasure Island Casino where I found some parking. All the way, I have never seen a 5'11" man shrink down to the size of a small suitcase in the passenger seat. He was wide eyed, cowering and absolutely silent. Every once in a while, he'd glance around at the people walking on the sidewalks next to us and murmur "obi... i'm scared...". I think I was starting to crack his mental will to live...

Parking was found, I managed to coax Robb out of the car to find food. Where did we eat? The cheapest, dingiest hole in the wall casino on the strip - the Frontier. If you've never been to Vegas, the Frontier is the casino that's like your old pet dog that just refuses to die. Its hair is scruffy in the patches that its got left, half blind, pees on the carpet incessantly and loses itself in episodes of dementia as it attempts to chase its own tail. Yup - that's the Frontier. It's sunk so low that it takes pride in how cheesy and dilapidated it really is as it sits next to the newer and glitzier casinos like Treasure Island.

One buffet, 2 casino and a long walk around Vegas during Halloween weekend later, we find ourselves back to the car and heading back to camp. Robb is so shell shocked from his ordeal that he has to sit in perfect silence in the car and stays awake for the next hour trying to compose himself. He would now murmur a more distinct comment to me: "I hate you Obi". *grin* We never did find nice looking scantily clad women... 'cept the ones in the pirate show but they were too far away to really appreciate anyway. I think I successfully *almost* killed him in spirit.

Oh and a general message to some of you ladies: if you have cottage cheese arms and weigh over 250 lbs, please do not walk around in public with a playboy bunny costume.

... then I tried to kill him... wait, he tried to kill me... no, we tried to kill each other... (part two: Dark Shadow)

After rapping off Y2K, Robb and I have about 3 hours of sunlight left to run over to Dark Shadow, climb three pitches and get off before being lost in total darkness.

When we run over, what we find is Dark Shadow looming overhead with a couple of parties rapping down, and one party of two midway up. Robb and I just look at each other with a gleeful glint in our eyes and quickly rope up. 3 hours. that means one hour for one pitch. Not to mention extra time to rappel in the light. My average tends to be one hour per pitch, with both the leader and the follow completing that section of the climb - Robb was pretty confident that we could do it.

After the rappelling parties were nearly done, Robb takes off, linking the first two pitches of Dark Shadow into one long pitch (that was our original plan). It was pretty impressive watching him become the living "blur" - a mass of white blurry climber moving up past the dark desert varnish that made of Dark Shadow (hence the name - duh!). I ran up to him when he put me on belay (ran is pretty close to what I was doing - I was almost out of breath when I reached him 170' up), and we switched leads. With very little rest, I scampered up the next pitch.

So something to note: take breaks when speedclimbing. I was sloppy leading up the second pitch of Dark Shadows - feet kept wobbling, hands couldn't decide how to go up, etc. etc. I managed to get to the anchors at the end of the second pitch, but somewhat more slowly than I would have liked. Still, it was an enjoyable pitch and probably my favorite of the weekend.

Now, getting to the belay ledge was interesting. I arrive to find a climber, whom we will name "Bill", sitting there with a half-dazed half-amused look. "How was the jug hauling... dude...?" he asked. "Umm... good. A fun pitch" I answered. I was a bit confused - yes, there were big holds on that but there was still a decent amount of crack climbing involved too - not exactly what I'd call "jug hauling". I made my anchor and belayed robb to my stance - the entire time listening to Bill's comments and quips to his belayer whom we will name "Ted".

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - bill and ted were stoners. Or if they weren't, they've gotten stoned so often they were perma-stoned. I wouldn't be surprised if they were so stoned that they're able to naturally crap out weed from their asses on command. I was nervously eyeing them as they climbed overhead - I really wouldn't want bill and ted to land on me with their weed crapping asses. My head would smell of ganja for months...

Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Bill slowly, but methodically plodded his way up the 5.8 crack above me while Robb reached my stance. By the time Robb started up, Bill and Ted were starting their rappel. I would follow Robb shortly, and afterwards, we would start our rappel down.

Once again, this is where things get interesting. Robb and I have rappeled back to the "first" belay ledge that Robb got to. 170' below us is a small stream where I watched numerous other parties splash their ropes into... My two ropes when tied together gives us a 200' rappel. Doing simple math means that at least 30' of my ropes will get wet. I look over at Robb and he seems to know what he's doing as he threads the rope through the chains. "we should be careful not to get the ropes wet" I tell him (or something along those lines). he gives me an affirmative and throws the first of two ropes down... *splash!*. Robb kinda gives me this guilty look as he realizes that he just threw some of the rope into the water. *sigh* - it's santa ana conditions this weekend so the air is super dry - that should help tonight...

We decide to simul rappel - one climber on a strand of rope, each acting as a counter weight for the other person. At this point we're losing light FAST so hastily clip into the ropes and begin our descent. Robb quickly takes the lead and he's about 10' below me as he rappels down towards the stream. And this is where he tries to kill me. Robb touches ground first, stands up and unweights the rope. Remember: he's my counter weight. Which means when he stood up, I started free falling. All I remember is saying "woah Woah WOAH!!!" and abruptly coming to a stop a foot or so above the water. Later on Robb would tell me that I fell about 15', and it took him a moment to realize what was happening... he also told me taht my toes definitely disturbed the water below me... talk about a close call. I was a bit concerned during the fall, but in hindsight, I found it pretty amusing.

So: so far, I nearly killed myself attempting to climb across a blank slab after losing the route, and Robb has nearly killed me during a rappeling incident. Don't worry - I get back at him.

... then I tried to kill him... wait, he tried to kill me... no, we tried to kill each other... (part one: Y2K)

Rock Trip Report: Red Rocks, NV!!

Good trip to Red Rocks, a place about 20 min west of Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. As expected, the rocks were... red. My friend Chris and his gf Elaine held a campsite that Robb and I crashed (or at least we hoped it was there's when we rolled in at 1 am) whereupon we started our desert journey.

So what did we do? We pretty much tried to kill each other. No, Robb and I don't hate each other. Well, actually - yes we do. But not like that. Umm... sorta. Let me explain:


We start our climbing adventure on Sat morning, lazily getting up around 8 and confirming that the campsite we were in really did belong to Chris and Elaine (Good morning my friends!!!). Robb and I made our quick breakfast and headed out to go climb Dark Shadow and possibly Y2k - both multipitch ordeals on supposedly fantastic Red Rocks sandstone.

We manage to hoof it over to Dark Shadow, but were dismayed when we realized there was a queue for the climb 6 people deep. Robb and I scratched our scratchy heads together, looked around and decided to hoof it back over to Y2K - we'd just warm up on 5.10a! Hee hee.

I took the meat of the climb - the .10a pitch. Looked pretty straightforward - face climbing with some cracks, get to a roof, pull the lip, move up on crimpers and cruise to the bolts. No problem. Took me a minute to compose myself at the beginning of the climb - my mental state wasn't *quite* there (playback of mental state: "OH DEAR GAWD WHAT AM I DOING?! It's ok it's ok - just gotta remember how to use face holds.... FACE?! crappola!!!! I want mother. I looove mother...")

Robb comes up after I built the anchor, we switch leads and he takes on the second pitch. Go us!

Now this is where it gets interesting. I follow Robb up the second pitch, remmber that the next pitch is a 5.4 R 40' traversing route. I could swear that the description was "climb 10' upwards onto a big ledge and traverse to the right, clipping a single bolt for protection". So I climb about 5' (couldnt' find a big ledge for another 30'), walk around an arete and find... a blank slab. SLAB. I HATE slab (I love mother though). I see a single bolt, a couple of chalked hand holds AND NO FEET. 5.4?!?!?! I fidget around for a while, talk to Robb (who is only 10 ft away from me) and discuss our options. Eventually, we both agree that we're probably off route somewhere and should head back to Dark Shadow since the light is starting to fade.

I told Johnnie this and she put it well: I basically nearly killed myself. I went off route, was about to set some meager pro, climb across a blank slab to what was probably harder terrain, and if I fell, I'd swing back and under my protection as my rope would knock off the loose scree from the ledge I had been standing on, onto my head. And then Johnnie would have my gear. But Obi would be sad. :'(. Fortuantely, this didn't happen so Obi was happy :D

In the end, after climbing 300', Robb and I rappeled back to the ground and headed over to Dark Shadow. All in all, I thought it was an enjoyable climb, although the 10a crux section felt easier - more like a hard 5.9 move. But whatever - it felt good to jump on a 10a and feel like I cruised it. :D